Hell Is Weird
by clair beaubien
Summary: Sam's thoughts as he falls toward the cage. Ch2: Dean and Sam talk about what happened. Up now: Ch3: Cas tells Sam how he got out. Sam is not happy.
1. Chapter 1

"_Pride makes us artificial…humility makes us real" - Thomas Merton _

SPN*SPN*SPN

Hell is weird.

'_That, my little brother, is understatement of eternity'_ I could hear Dean say.

We fell for an eternity, but only for a few seconds.

The hole we fell into was pitch black and blazing white and burning cold and freezing hot and_ weird._ We were falling and floating and rising and falling. Always falling. Ass over ears to nowhere, headlong into hell.

As we fell, deeper and deeper into hell, into the cage, towards the deepest part of hell, we fell past holes and tunnels and plateaus and burning black billows of demons and beasts and souls deformed by their own arrogant evil. I heard screams and howls and bellows and the terrifying laughter of mania and insanity.

And the farther we fell, the worse it all grew.

The evil and ugliness and howls and hate and despair grew stronger, more oppressive, the farther we fell towards the bottom of the cage.

"It's your mother's fault, you know." That was Lucifer, inside my head. "She made that first deal, she cursed you to this."

I thought about it. I had the time to think about it.

"If I'm here because of my Mom, then my Mom is one of the reasons you're back in your cage."

He didn't like that answer, if the lightning bolt of agony bursting inside my skull was any clue.

"And your father. The life he dragged you through. It wasn't any life at all, was it? You were never as important to him as anyone he thought needed_ saving._"

I had no way of knowing how far we'd fallen, or how much farther we had to go, but hooks and knives and claws began to reach in towards me, catching and slicing and tearing me open. And the farther we fell, the more there were and the closer they came.

"Dad taught me that the most important thing is_ family_. And that family_ is_ anyone who needs saving. And the_ world_ needed saving, from_ you_. So he's_ another_ reason you're back in here."

The pain from another burst of lightning made me gag, and made me wonder if my skull really was coming apart.

"And poor Jess…" He went on, sounding like he pitied me. "Such a lovely girl. So sweet, so innocent. Such a waste."

"Jess – losing Jess -." Talking – thinking - wasn't exactly easy anymore. "Loving Jess is why I lost her. And losing Jess is what got me back hunting. And hunting led me to you._ And you're back in your cage._"

The lightning this time sizzled my eyes and I gagged again. The hooks and claws and knives were so close and numerous now it was like falling through a food processor. Each slice and gouge and fragmentation, I accepted, though. I_ welcomed_ them as proof of a job well done. I had gotten evil back in its cage.

"Even Adam." I decided to not give him the chance to go there first. I looked around, but the hole was dark and dazzling and I couldn't see Adam. "If Adam hadn't decided to say yes to Michael, and been used as bait, then Dean wouldn't have had the chance to tell Michael to kiss his ass and -."

"_Your brother -."_ Lucifer cut in. He sounded pissed._ Ha._ "Your precious brother Dean is topside right now, not even_ thinking_ about you. He's gone on with his life. He's gone on with_ your_ life, the life_ you_ wanted. Picket fence, rugrats, the little woman. He doesn't think about you at all."

"_Good."_ I didn't mean to say that so earnestly, so emphatically, but –_ good._

"Good?"

Gee, I guess I surprised somebody.

"Yes, good. He's doing what I told him to do." The agony peaked in my head again, burning and boiling like animate road flares. I had to force myself to keep talking. "_He loves me enough to do what I asked him to do."_

"_Dean's the reason you're here." _

"N-n-no._ I'm_ the reason_ I'm_ here. Dean's p-p-part of the reason_ you're_ here. He g-g-gave me the s-s-strength to – to – jump."

If I thought the pain in my head had been bad before, this time it was incomprehensible. I'm pretty sure I screamed.

"Doesn't it make you_ angry_? Dean_ broke_ in hell._ Dean_ opened the first seal. But_ you're_ the one everyone blamed._ You're_ the one here now._ You're_ the one_ suffering."_

"_It's – what – I – deserve."_ I choked out.

"You killed yourself, you know. You chose to jump in here and kill yourself. That's suicide, that's a_ sin_, a big no-no Upstairs."

I had no clue where he was going with all this. To make me angry? To make me despair? _Sin_? Really? Here's a clue –_ I'm already in hell_.

"N-n-no. I_ chose_ to put you back in your c-c-c-cage. M-m-my death was – was – an un-un-unintended consequence."_ Thank you, Pastor Jim, for the lessons in articles of faith._ "It's not – not – a sin."

And the pain kept on. It seemed to be concentrated now at the top of my skull, where I parted my hair, when I parted my hair.

Like I said, hell is weird.

"You were the best, Sammy. Out of all of them, you were the best, the smartest, the strongest. Your Dad, Dean, Bobby, even Castiel - they have nothing over you. And you threw it all away. You wasted your best gift, Sammy. You wasted all that power that was inside of you. You were the best, and yet here you are."

"No._ NO_. I'm the_ least_ of any of them."

"Do you_ want_ to be here?" His voice became so shrill, it_ was_ the lightning inside my head. "_You'll suffer for eternity_."

"I w-w-want_ you_ here. And if m-m-my s-s-s-suffering is the price of that,_ so be it_."

"You think being here is_ good_?"

"No – but it's_ right."_

And then my head did crack open. Or at least it felt that way. And as the hole to hell blazed in blackness, I saw something even blacker pour out of the top of my head and speed down away from me, shrieking and wailing and guttural.

And suddenly I was on a street corner, under a burned out street light, watching Dean through a dining room window. I was whole and clean and_ fine._

And very, very confused.

I searched through my mind, needing to know, needing to be sure, but I found no trace of Lucifer inside my mind or soul or body. I was me, just me, for as good as that could ever be.

And Dean was thirty feet away from me.

My legs worked better than I thought they would and in a few seconds I was at the front door. I couldn't seem to get my hand to knock though. Then I couldn't seem to knock loud enough. And then -

And then the door was open and Dean was there.

Dean was there.

"_Sammy_?" I saw him reach his hand to the back of his jeans, then come back empty. He wasn't armed and he wasn't sure that I was who I knew I was. I needed to convince him, to reassure him, to let him know that I was me. So I said the first thing that came to my mind.

"_Hell is weird."_

He looked at me like I was crazy, then he grinned, then he grabbed me in a hug that couldn't possibly last long enough.

"_That, little brother, wins understatement of eternity."_

The end


	2. Welcome Home Sammy

A/N: there's going to be at least one more chapter to this. Castiel explains to Sam how he got out of hell. And Sam doesn't exactly like the reason.

* * *

"In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn." GK Chesterton

* * *

"_Hell is weird."_

"_And that, my little brother, wins understatement of eternity."_

Sam was back and I'd finally let go of him and wiped my eyes – damn allergies, you know – and Lisa offered him dinner, but he asked for a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk and we were sitting at the kitchen table and I was waiting for him to spill everything about what happened to him downstairs.

I'd told Lisa what happened to Sam, but we hadn't told Ben. Well, not the _geography_, just that Sam was missing and more than likely dead. So to have said-dead-guy suddenly appear on his front step was _totally cool_, which I _totally_ agreed with. He wanted to sit and talk to Sam almost as much as I did.

_Almost_ as much.

Lisa finally dragged him back to the dining room though and dinner, and Sam and I were alone and together finally.

"I don't know how I got out." Were the first words he said when we were alone. There was no question or accusation in his words; he said them down to his peanut butter sandwich, offering me his best explanation as though I might _care_ how he got out.

"Sammy, if that's _all _we have to worry about, I'll be happy."

He smiled up at me, relieved, and poked a little at his sandwich.

"I don't know if I'm hungry."

I thought back to my own just-back-from-hell experience, the fear and disorientation and heightened awareness that blocked out everything but immediate survival.

"You're hungry." I told him.

He gave me his puzzled, '_All right, if you say so' _squint, and picked up the sandwich. Then put it down again.

"_You're okay? Really?_ I didn't - ? You didn't -? When I - _left_ – you looked so bad."

Seriously, I wanted to hug him again. My geek little brother just escaped _hell_, and he wanted to know that _I_ was okay.

"I'm okay, Sammy. Cas fixed me back up."

"_Cas?Castiel? He's okay? I saw him – he – he –"_ and he made the universal 'exploding' gesture with his hands. I wondered why he wasn't saying the word. I probably already knew.

"God brought him back. That's what Cas said. Got his angel juice back. He healed me, he healed Bobby too."

"_Bobby? Bobby's OK? He's alive?" _Sam's desperation made me ache. Whatever happened to him in hell never hurt him as much as thinking he'd left us dead on the way.

"Yeah, he's fine. Good as new. Says the crick in his elbow is even gone…"

"_Oh_. I – _oh._" He grabbed his sandwich up then and took a huge bite and scrubbed one eye with the heel of his hand and then scrubbed the other eye and then stared at the sandwich like he had to memorize it or else. Then he scrubbed his eyes again.

It's something to see the only man in history strong enough to control absolute evil reduced to tears by _good_ news.

"I thought I killed everybody. I was trying to save the world and I thought by doing that I'd finally killed everybody I loved."

I _seriously_ wanted to hug him again.

"We're all okay, Sammy. Including the world. You saved us."

I wanted him to be happy about that, I wanted that to make hell fall away for him; I knew it wouldn't but I wished it would. He smiled but it didn't last and he kept on not looking at me. That was OK. To come out of wrenching bedlam into humdrum normal was going to take some doing. Just because feeling safe was good didn't mean it was instant.

"It'll take a little while, but things _will_ normal out." I told him. "Until then – it just is what it is."

"Yeah." He didn't take another bite of sandwich. He looked at me. "Was it God? Did God make everything right?"

"_You_ made everything right." I said. "God only took care of what He shouldn't have let happen in the first place."

Sam gave me a perplexed face. Apparently, even after everything that happened, I wasn't allowed to diss God. Not in front of Sammy. He took a second bite of the sandwich.

"Hell is weird." He said again after he'd chewed and swallowed.

"To say the least."

"It wasn't – it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." He looked and sounded puzzled. "I thought it would be more – more _internal_. You know? But it was all external. I mean – I felt the pain, I felt all the physical pain, but I didn't feel the anger or despair or hatred. He wanted me to. Lucifer. He kept trying to – actually I don't know what he was trying for. He kept trying to make me blame everybody else, anybody else, that I was in hell. Mom and Dad and what happened to Jess. He tried to get me angry or despairing that you'd gone on with living, just like I asked you to. I just kept saying that whatever anybody did that put me in that hole meant that _they_ put him in that hole too, so it was good thing. Boy, did he hate that."

He finished the sandwich and drank all his milk and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"You sound like you enjoyed that he hated it." I said. I could only imagine absolute evil _angry_.

"I did. Sort of. I mean, every time I cracked a hole in his reasoning, he pretty much boiled my brain out of my skull but what was I supposed to do? Tell him he was right? That would've been lying. I wasn't going to lie." He shrugged like he was only talking about facing down the homeroom bully. "If he was pissed, it meant I was doing something right. I enjoyed _that_. Can I have some more milk?"

The transition from hell to milk confused me at first. One second he's talking about boiling brains – and I couldn't help wincing at the description, because this was Sammy, he wouldn't exaggerate - the next second he's asking for a glass of milk like it's any night in our life and I get to tell him if we have enough milk left for him to have more.

"Uh – yeah. Sure. Give me your glass. Want some more PB?"

He thought about it.

"I don't know. Do I?"

"We got pie." I offered him with a grin. "Strawberry rhubarb."

He's not nearly as much a pie-guy as I am, but he grinned back.

"Sure."

I poured him the glass of milk and took his empty plate. I cut out a big piece of pie and slid it onto the plate and set it and a fork on the table in front of him.

"Thanks." He picked up the fork and started to get started. Then he froze and stared down at the pie like he suddenly saw things crawling through it. His breathing turned to panting.

I looked at the plate and saw it. It wasn't blood red, but it didn't have to be - out the sides of the crust, spongy chunks of strawberries and rhubarb oozed through thick, sticky pie juice. I knew that's what we were both looking at; I also knew what we were both _seeing._ I grabbed the plate and set it into the sink, out of Sam's line of sight.

"I'm sorry." _God, I couldn't be sorry enough. _

Sam nodded, still staring at the table where the pie had been. He set the fork down very precisely, pressed both hands against the tabletop, and tried to control his breathing.

"How long?" He finally asked. I'd been waiting for him to ask. "How long has it been? I can't tell."

"A little over a month." I said. I sat down again. "Forty days." I knew he'd do the math just that fast in his head and come up with,

"Thirteen years. That's thirteen years and four months I was falling."

"_Falling_? You didn't _land_?"

"No. We kept falling. Just falling. It was -." He shrugged and gave me a look that told me he knew he was saying it a lot. " – _weird_. Things kept – _cutting_ me, _slicing _me. But it was like they were trying to make me fall faster. Like they were catching hold of me, not to keep me where they could cut me some more, but to impel me that much faster down the hole. Like I couldn't get there fast enough for them."

His hand gripped tight around his glass but he didn't take a drink.

"Is this how you felt when you got out?" He asked me. "I feel…"

"Gobsmacked?" I supplied when he couldn't seem to find the word. He looked at me like he'd just smelled something really bad.

"_Concussed._" He said, with the exact same tone from when he was nine and I'd used the word '_discreet'_ when I should've used '_discrete'_. I guess even hell couldn't burn the geek out of my brother.

"I feel like a really loud noise just got shut off." He kept on. "Like the world is just going to roll away beneath my feet if I try to walk. Like nothing is sure. Like all I have is you."

I s_eriously_ wanted to hug him again. Sammy had a _lot_ more than me, but I wasn't going to dispute him right now. I settled for putting my hand around his wrist. His breath hitched, like he'd been waiting for me to do just that. He stared at my hand.

"_You've got me." _I said.

He nodded and gave me a thankful smile. I kept my hand right where it was.

"How do you think I got out?" He asked. "Did God pull me out? _Would_ He? I mean there's no handprints on me, not that I can tell. If an angel didn't pull my out, what did?"

He was starting to sound a little freaked, so I cut him off.

"Sammy – c'mon, think about it. When I came back, we pretty much established from all the lore that only angels can pull somebody from hell. If there's no handprint, maybe it was just easier to haul your skinny ass out of there."

"Yeah, okay." He wanted to smile, but it wasn't working. "D'you think Cas would know? He'd know, wouldn't he? Could we call him?"

"He's kind of gone out of range, now. The job in the Corner Office opened up and he was the only one available to take it. Talk about _phone home._"

"He's back in Heaven? Really?" Sam sank back in the chair when I nodded, and he closed his eyes with a sigh. "_Good._ I'm glad. He deserves it."

My geek little brother. He sacrificed himself to hell to save six billion strangers, and he's honestly glad when anybody else gets the happy ending.

"You deserve to be home, too." I told him.

He nodded, kinda stiff at first, but then he seemed to get the hang of agreeing with me.

"Good. Finish your milk then. I'll get your gear out of the car and you can take a shower, then get some rest. Anything we need to figure out, we can figure out tomorrow."

So he drank down the milk and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and I put his glass in the sink so he wouldn't see the treacherous pie.

"Thanks." He said. He stood up and gestured to the table and the sink like he thought he had to thank me for feeding him. Like he had to thank me for _anything._ "And thanks – thank you – for – for -."

Just as I was thinking that I _seriously_ needed to hug him again, he moved first and pulled me close so hard I was practically behind him. I put my arms around him and held on just as tight.

"Thank you for being _here_." He whispered against my shoulder, tearful and desperate and _so_ grateful.

"That's _my_ line." I told him and he laughed and held on. "Welcome home, Sammy."


	3. Hell Cannot Abide

"What is lost through pride is regained through humility." St. Louis de Montfort.

* * *

Something woke me up.

I was in a fake wicker chair out on Lisa's back porch, watching over Sammy. I'd been sleeping, but something woke me up.

I looked first to Sam, but he was still sound asleep, camped out on the glider that _seriously _was not meant for somebody his size to sleep on. He had a couple pillows under his head on one arm of the glider and another one under his feet at the other end. Well, _one _foot; his other foot rested on the wood porch floor. One hand had slid off from his across his chest and was stretched out toward me. He was sound asleep. Nothing there had woke me up. A quick look around showed me -

"_Cas_."

Sitting in the shadows in the other fake wicker chair.

He stood up and walked a couple of steps closer to me. He looked the same as he did when he winged out of my car that night that Sammy saved the world. I was surprised. After going back to Heaven, I thought Cas'd look different. Shinier maybe.

"Is Sam all right?"

I knew the answer but I looked at Sam again. He hadn't moved. Nearly a dozen water bottles, some full, most empty were scattered on the floor between us. He'd been drinking water almost constantly all night.

"There didn't seem to be enough air in the house for him. We came out here to sleep, instead."

"Does he know how he got out?"

I didn't like that question.

"_You _didn't do it?" That was not good. "What did?"

"Sam did. Sam removed himself."

"_No_. Sam doesn't know how he got out.""No, he wouldn't."

"All right Captain Cryptic, what does that mean? How would Sam get himself out that he doesn't remember?"

"He got out by being simply _Sam Winchester_."

"And that means _what_?" I was losing any shred of patience I had stored up. "Tell me if Sam is safe, and tell me _now."_

"Dean?" Sam's voice interrupted me getting ready to rip Cas's wings off if he didn't start giving me clear answers.

"Hey, Sammy. Didn't mean to wake you up. Go back to sleep."

"…mmmhh…"

I thought he would slip back to sleep, but he caught sight of our unforthcoming visitor and he was sitting up in a heartbeat.

"_Cas_! _Dean, did you ask him? How did I get out? What'd he say? Cas? Dean?"_

"Hang on, Sam. We were just discussing that."

"_But - no - Cas? Do you know? Dean - does he know?"_

I moved over to sit next to Sam. I grabbed one of the bottles of water off the floor, cracked it open, and handed it to him.

"Just slow down." I told him. "_Oma Desala _here is giving me nothing but riddles."

"Why? What?" Sam looked at me, at Cas, and back at me while he drained the water. "What're you talking about? Cas? What's he talking about?"

Cas started to answer, but I held a finger up to stop him. I was gonna tell Sam.

"_He says you got yourself out."_

"No - _how?_ I didn't do anything. Did I?" Sam's eyes got wide. "I'm not - I'm not still - _Dean_?"

"Lucifer remains in the cage, where you put him." Cas said.

"He is? Really?" Sam asked - _me_.

"I don't know, Sammy. We hadn't gotten that far." I caught Cas' gaze and stared hard at him. "_He was just about to explain himself."_

"What do you remember about being in hell?" Cas asked Sam, instead of explaining.

Sam looked at me again; he still had that answer on his tongue. I answered Cas for him.

"_It was weird."_

Cas shook his head like not only was that the wrong answer, it was a '_duh' _answer.

"What did you _feel_?"

I'll tell you what _I _felt - I felt Sam push so close to me that his arm pushed behind my arm, like he was trying to physically get away from the question. I automatically reached across him to protect him.

"Don't ask him that." I told Cas. "What's that got to do with how he got out? What do you _think_ he felt?"

"Not the _external_. What did you _feel_?"

Sam looked at me _again_, confused and more than a little worried.

"I don't know what - Dean? What does he mean?"

He was getting upset, so Cas was getting gone.

"Enough of this crap, Cas. Talk or fly."

Cas kind of nodded sideways, like he was finally getting the idea that we couldn't read his mind.

"In the simplest terms, Sam - your humility saved you."

"Yeah, right." Sam laughed, and I didn't like the sound. "You've got me confused with somebody else." He drank some more water and looked at me like he expected me to agree with him.

But - Cas wasn't sounding crazy to me.

"What do you mean?" I asked Cas.

"Sam - do you know what humility is?"

"The quality of being modest or respectful." Sam the human dictionary answered him back immediately. My geek little brother. I bet he knows how to spell 'supercalifraji-whatever' too.

"True humility is true knowledge of self, of knowing one's strengths and one's weaknesses, and being proud of neither, but merely accepting them, understanding them, using the strength, curbing the weakness."

Sam shrugged and shook his head.

"So? What's that got to do with me? That's not me. God - if that _was_ me, none of this ever would've happened."

I looked at Cas, and really hoped he knew where he was going with all of this. He didn't look back at me though, he kept his eyes on Sam.

"Sam - did you feel you belonged in hell?"

"I - uh -." Sam only glanced at me this time. He knew I wasn't going to like his answers. "Yeah. _Yeah. _You know? I - I let him out. I needed to put him back."_"Sam."_

"No, Dean. Even if I hadn't let him out, if I was the only chance to put him back, I would've. He needed to be recaged, and my life was sure a small price to pay for that. I'm not sorry for that. I never _would've _been sorry for that."

I couldn't argue with him - I knew that was true, that was Sam straight up and down. He _would_ have gone down into the pit to save the world, to save a continent, to save _one person_, if that was the only way to do it. And with not one regret.

"Were you angry to be in hell?" Cas kept on.

"No. I just said - if that's what it took, that's what it took."

"And you don't feel there's anyone who deserves to be in hell more than you?"

Enough with the questions and riddles; I still wanted to rip Cas' wings off to make him get to the point. Sam dropped his head and took a quick sip from his nearly empty water bottle, and only kept answering him.

"That's not my place to say. I'm the last person who should judge anybody else. I mean - _obviously_, it's all I can do to take care of myself. And sometimes _more_ than I can do. I'm not -." He shook his head. "No. If you need an actual answer out of me - no."

Something changed about Cas. I couldn't put my finger on it. He stood straighter, or more relaxed, or something.

"_That _is humility, Sam. To judge oneself and no one else. Whether you choose to believe it or not, you are a humble man, and hell cannot abide a humble man. It will vomit him out."

Next to me, I felt Sam tense up. Maybe he was surprised that humility was how he got out. Maybe he was just relieved that he _was permanently _out. He stood up and took a step towards Cas. Maybe he was going to hug him in gratitude.

Or maybe…

"_So now I'm **vomit**__?"_

… maybe he was just going to get pissed_. Really really pissed. _

I stood up next to him. He was using his 'wrath of God' voice and Cas had a slightly shocked look on his face. I think the only two people never intimidated by that voice - apparently angels included - were Dad and me.

"Sam - stop scaring the nice angel."

"No. _No._ Where does he get off? _Where do you get off calling me that_?"

"Sam - really." Cas lifted his hands and wisely took a step back away from him. "That is in no way a derogatory remark. Indeed, it is the highest compliment - ."

"It's a compliment to be called _vomit?_"

"Dean - ." For the first time tonight, Cas decided to actively include me in his conversation with Sam. Me - I was hoping that _humility_ couldn't be retroactively rescinded. "Please make your brother understand - ."

"Yeah okay, Cas. I'll take it from here."

"Truly, this is a miraculous occurrence and not one to be greeted with incredulity and disdain."

Judging from the glare Sam was trying to drill into Cas' head, 'incredulity and disdain' were the least of his worries.

"Thanks for stopping by, Cas. Sam and I have some catching up to do. So - bye byeThoe."

Cas actually grumbled in his throat. He sounded aggravated. Talking with Sam could be aggravating? Really? Welcome back to Planet Winchester.

"Fine. Yes. You and Sam - _discuss_ - this. I will -." He stopped talking and I thought maybe he didn't think we were worth the trouble of telling us where he was going. But he lost the aggravated look and I think he might've even started to smile.

"I _am_ glad you've come back, Sam."

And then he was gone, leaving Sam to whisper a confused and sarcastic _'thanks'_ into empty darkness.

"All right, c'mon. Sit." I tugged on Sam's sleeve and pulled him back to the glider. He came, still all tensed up, but he came back and sat down next to me.

"So?" I asked when he didn't say anything, only kept fuming.

"_What?"_

He didn't look at me, only gave me that sidewise glance that I knew meant that _he_ knew what _I_ meant.

"C'mon, man. After everything we've been through these past - hell, these past _five _years, being referred to as '_puke' _bothers you?"

"Yeah, well…" He tapped one foot on the floor and crackled his empty water bottle in his hand. "I never liked being called names."

Like I haven't known that since his first day of Kindergarten.

"Technically, he wasn't calling _you _a name. He was naming hell's reaction _to _you."

He only shrugged. His feelings were hurt and by golly they were going to _stay _hurt. Humility _isn't_ retroactively rescindable _is it_?

"Want some more water?" I asked, and when he nodded I took the empty bottle and handed him another full one.

"Thanks." He popped the top and took a long gulp. When he capped it again he said, "_I just kinda hoped it was God. You know?" _

"_God_?"

"Yeah. I just - you know - thought maybe after everything, maybe God, maybe _God,_ maybe _did_ care."

"_Sammy…_"

"No - yeah - no, I know. I know it's - _stupid._ After everything - everything I've done - yeah, I know." He sighed. _"I know._"

"NO. No, Sam. That is _not_ - just- just - _no_. Okay?"

"It's OK, Dean. Really. I'm mean - I've been to _hell._ It's not like you have to try and spare my feelings."

He tried to make that be funny, tried to make it a serious joke. It wasn't funny and I wasn't laughing.

"_Sam _-" I started to rip him a new riot act, but just looking at him, I didn't have the heart. I remembered how happy Sam was when we found out an angel pulled me from the pit. How happy he was _for me_, because if God wanted me out of hell, I'd finally have to believe I was worth as much as Sam always said I was worth. So - of _course _he wanted God to save him. If _he _was worth God saving him, then _he _could really believe in _his _own worth.

"Sam…" I started over. "Dad escaped hell. I got dragged out. But you - hell _kicked you out."_

"_Yeah_." He shrugged and drank more water and sounded as interested as if I'd asked him to a muscle car rally. Never mind that God was not currently on my "A" list. Never mind that the fact that Sam got himself out of hell confirmed every good thing I already knew about him. Sam wanted God to have pulled him from the cage. I'd see what I could do.

"_God_ set up the rules that said you wouldn't stay in hell. That you _couldn't_ stay in hell. Sammy - from the beginning of time, God _knew you_, knew the choice you'd face and He set it up so that you - _YOU _- would get out again. _God_ did that."

"You think?"

What I thought was that I didn't care how Sam got out. I only cared that he _was_ out and that he was _staying_ out. But he sounded hopeful, _so_ hopeful_. _

"_Yeah, I do. _I think that's how you got home."

He nodded. He sighed. He drank more water. I could feel all the tension drain out of him.

"You ready to go back to sleep?" I asked him. He nodded but it seemed distracted. "What? You're not still pissed about the 'vomit' remark are you?"

"No. No - I'm _home? _Home?"

I was tired. I decided to forgo lengthy explanations and elastic arguments.

"_Home_. _You're _here, _I'm _here, the _car _is here. You got _another _definition of _home_?"

I was rewarded with an honest to goodness smile.

"Nope."

It was the single best word I'd ever heard.

The End.


End file.
